Count Down to the Cross
In the face of institutional inertia, reformers may feel the need to “move fast and break things”, but then they run the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Getting the balance right requires prudence, and sound judgment. Even churches struggle to do so. In the second Vatican Council (1962-1965) the Roman church identified public worship as an area in need of renewal, but the reforms that followed were more drastic than had been anticipated, and did serious damage to the liturgy of the Roman church, and by its influence, on the liturgies of Protestant churches also. In particular, they harmed the church year (the annual cycle of seasons and holy days), and the eucharistic lectionary (the scripture lessons read at mass) in which that church year is embodied and expressed.
Like the Anglican and Lutheran churches, the Roman church had inherited from catholic antiquity a form of the calendar and of the eucharistic lectionary. In its Roman form, this calendar and lectionary had suffered some displacements and accretions, which could have been corrected by a modest and prudent reform. Instead, the Roman authorities mutilated the ancient calendar and abolished the ancient eucharistic lectionary in favor of a new three-lesson, three-year cycle, the Ordo Lectionum Missae of 1969. Thus was the baby thrown out with the bathwater.
This would just have been a Roman problem, except that the mainline Protestant churches (including Episcopalians and Lutherans) decided to follow suit, in the Common Lectionary of 1983 (and its replacement, the Revised Common Lectionary of 1994).
The new lectionaries sought was to increase the quantity of Scripture read at the eucharist, but this expansion came at the expense of doctrinal quality, and teaching of Christ and his Church. (It has been said, that if you want to know more about the Bible use the modern lectionary; but if you want to know more about Jesus, use the ancient lectionary.) Nowhere is this more evident that in the disappearance of the ancient Sundays before Lent (which begin this year on February 16th). In order to maximize the time available for “semi-continuous reading” from books of the Bible, the reformers summarily abolished these ancient Sundays, and extended the season after Epiphany (“ordinary time”) all the way to Shrove Tuesday, where it runs smack into Lent.
The three Sundays before Lent which they abolished bear the old Latin names of Septuagesima (“seventieth”), Sexagesima (“sixtieth”), and Quinquagesima (“fiftieth”). As the numbers suggest, with them the church begins a countdown that will take it through the forty days of Lent (in Latin, Quadragesima) all the way to Easter, the feast of Christ’s resurrection. In these Sundays the church is prepared for this new direction of the Church’s year – and the necessity for this preparation is not to be airily dismissed. As noted by the Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, “Long before the actual beginning of Lent, the Church announces its approach and invites us to enter into a period of pre-Lenten preparation…. the Church knows our inability to change rapidly, to go abruptly from one spiritual or mental state into another. Thus, long before the actual effort of Lent is to begin, the Church calls our attention to its seriousness and invites us to meditate on its significance. Before we can practice Lent we are given it meaning.” The summary dismissal of this rationale by the reformers betrays their narrowly pedagogical perspective, their lack of spiritual wisdom and pastoral judgment.
So what is the meaning they teach? Recall first the meaning of the season just past. In Epiphany the church celebrates the manifestation of God’s glory in Christ – manifested to us, that it may be manifested in us, as we are transformed by him. But now we move on to the next stage, to the necessity of disciplined effort in our ongoing transformation. That’s why on Septuagesima we hear of the labourers in the vineyard, and the athlete’s training; on Sexagesima the labours of the apostle and the patience that receives and keeps the seed of God’s word; on Quinquagesima of the journey up to Jerusalem, from blindness to vision; and of growing up into the maturity in faith, hope, and charity. The images vary, but the theme is one: the transformation of our lives requires effort, training, labour, discipline – the Lenten good works of fasting and self-denial, persistent prayer, and sacrificial giving.
Wherever works are involved, there is a risk of Pelagian works-righteousness, in which we think to put God under obligation by our trivial efforts. But these lessons also teach that all our work and labor is at all points dependent upon the unmerited grace of God, who calls us to labor and rewards us beyond all deserving. Even our will to work, and the strength and skill we bring to it, are themselves the gifts of his grace. As the Lord said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9, Sexagesima).